China has had a remarkable period of rapid growth shifting from a centrally planned to a market based economy. Today, China is an upper middle-income country that has complex development needs, where the Bank continues to play an important development role.
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The China Clean Stove Initiative (CSI),
a collaborative effort of the Chinese government and the
World Bank, aims to scale up access to clean cooking and
heating stoves... Show More + for poor, primarily rural households, who are
likely to continue using solid fuels beyond 2030. More than
half of China's population still relies on solid fuels
(coal and biomass) for cooking and heating; many of these
households, located mainly in rural areas, are likely to
continue using solid fuels in the near future. Switching to
modern energy alternatives would be the most effective way
to achieve clean cooking and heating solutions and should be
encouraged; yet such fuels are more expensive than solid
fuels, requiring more costly stoves and delivery
infrastructure. Effective strategies to scale up the
dissemination of clean burning, fuel-efficient stoves for
household cooking and heating can mitigate the health
hazards associated with the burning of solid fuels. It is
estimated that Household Air Pollution (HAP) from solid fuel
use results in more than a million premature deaths each
year in China. Scaled-up access to clean and efficient
stoves is consistent with China's strategy to promote
energy conservation, reduced carbon emissions, and green
energy in villages. The China CSI comprises four phases: 1)
initial stocktaking and development of the implementation
strategy; 2) institutional strengthening, capacity building,
and piloting of the strategy; 3) scaled-up program
implementation; and 4) evaluation and dissemination of
lessons learned. This report will serve as a knowledge base
and roadmap to encourage and engage all interested parties
in working together on this important agenda. The initial
CSI stocktaking exercise calls for a comprehensive strategy
comprising institutional strengthening and building of an
enabling policy and regulatory environment, market and
business development, and stimulation of household demand,
supported by an innovative, results based financing approach. Show Less -

Results-Based Financing (RBF) is a
concept comprising a range of public policy instruments,
whereby incentives, rewards, or subsidies are linked to the
verified delivery... Show More + of pre-defined results. RBF is often used
to enhance access to and delivery of basic infrastructure
and social services, such as water and sanitation, energy,
and health care. In most cases, the funding entity typically
a government, development agency, or other agent deals
directly with the service provider. Some of the better known
RBF approaches include output-based aid (OBA) (GPOBA 2011),
conditional cash transfers, carbon finance, and advance
market commitments (AMCs). Unlike traditional public
procurement, which uses public resources to purchase the
inputs and contract service providers to deliver them to
users, the RBF approach uses private-sector resources to
finance the inputs and service delivery and public resources
to reimburse the service provider upon delivery of the
pre-defined results. Show Less -

More than half of China's
population still relies on solid fuels (coal and biomass for
cooking and heating. Most of these households are in rural
areas and are likely... Show More + to continue using solid fuels in the
near future. Household burning of solid fuels is a major
health risk factor in China, estimated to lead to more than
half million premature deaths annually with women and
children particularly affected. China needs to build on its
earlier successful stove programs and undertake more active
interventions. The World Bank is launching the China clean
stove initiative to help increase access to clean and
efficient stoves through capacity building, policy
development, and the support of selected government action plans. Show Less -

In determining domestic water prices,
policy makers often need to use information about the demand
side rather than only relying on information about the
supply side.... Show More + Household surveys have frequently been employed
to collect demand-side information. This paper presents a
multiple bounded discrete choice household survey model. It
discusses how the model can be utilized to collect and
analyze information about the acceptability of different
water prices by different types of households, as well as
households' willingness to pay for water service
improvement. The results obtained from these surveys can be
directly utilized in the development of water pricing and
subsidy policies. The paper also presents an empirical
multiple bounded discrete choice study conducted in
Chongqing, China. In this case, domestic water service
quality was seriously inadequate, but financial resources
were insufficient to improve service quality. With a survey
of about 1,500 households in five suburban districts in
Chongqing Municipality, this study shows that a significant
increase in the water price is feasible as long as the
poorest households can be properly subsidized and certain
public awareness and accountability campaigns can be
conducted to make the price increase more acceptable to the
public. The analysis also indicates that the order in which
hypothetical prices are presented to respondents
systematically affects their answers, and should be taken
into account when designing survey instruments. Show Less -